What?! It's a NEW YEAR ALREADY?! .

So, um... yeah... I haven't blogged in so long that my computer no longer automatically remembers my password for Blogger, and I had to go on a 15 minute hunt through piles of tiny slips of paper and index cards just to log on. I guess that's the holidays for you. I am always so excited in the months leading up to them, starting with Halloween. I always enjoy the whirl wind of changing decor, the excuse to bake things that are very bad for my waist line, the thrill of picking out and hiding presents and the excitement of seeing people open and enjoy them.... but honestly...

As soon as the living room floor is buried in wrapping paper and ribbon and tiny bits of toys are strewn EVERYWHERE... I'm just glad it's over and done with. I immediately begin itching to take down the tree, put every thing away and put everything back in it's place.

Our holiday was over all, pretty wonderful. Tim never had a clue what he was getting until he opened them and then was surprised that he had gotten every thing he had asked for that I had told him I wouldn't be able to afford this year. I am very sneaky. Very sneaky indeed. His favorite was probably his brand new cell phone with the full keyboard so that he can keep up with his sister in the text messaging department. He always gets so frustrated when he's in the middle of trying to text her back and she keeps sending him new ones because his old phone would automatically switch to her message and he'd have to start all over. I don't care so much for the electronics and cell phones and such... but he was very excited.

My favorite gift is going to be hard to pin down. I got a new coffee pot and I have to say... it's pretty awesome. And it's black, which is wonderful for my OCD because the old one was white and I had to attack it more than once with a tooth brush. So that was awesome, but then the hubs also got me some White Diamonds. Not the hard sparkly kind, the perfume kind and I love that too. I also got a few new books including the first in the Sookie Stackhouse series and I love books. Mom and Papa got me a new sewing machine and that made it a REALLY close call, but I have to say, my sister Allie's gift takes the cake: She bought me the first season of the Carol Burnette show on DVD. I literally squealed. I never squeal... but come on... Carol Burnette???!!!!! My all-time favorite variety show. EVER. HANDS DOWN. Nothing has ever been funnier or even come close to being as enjoyable to me as the Carol Burnette Show. It's going to be hard to top that... unless you know.. you get me season 2. *laughs*

The B got several really awesome things this year, including a new nick name. My niece, who is 2, has a hard time pronouncing people's names and so has taken to calling her "Ya-Ya-Bey-Bet." This is because whenever I fuss at Nadia I always say, "Nadia, Baby!" And I guess Anita has heard it and picked up on it. But I have to say, it's extremely cute and I crack up whenever she says it because Nadia is a Ya-Ya in every sense of the word. Other than that though, she got a new bike and some new barbies and play doh and all of the wonderful things that little 4 year old girls like. Although she isn't nearly as excitable about Santa coming as I thought she would be. After all of her constant pestering about WHEN Santa was coming, on Christmas morning she actually asked Tim if he would go check and see if the presents were there in favor of more sleep.

As for the baby, Allie took the cake again with the best gift (in my opinion). She got him a stuffed character from the Wild Things movie. His movie name was Bull. He is SOOOOOO adorable. Calvin loves him. Currently, Bull is very close in size to the baby and if you sit them in front of each other, the baby will "growl" at him and screech in joy and make other wild thing happy baby noises. Then he grabs Bull and tries to gum him to death, nose first. This was my favorite of the kids' gifts because I LOVE the Wild Things book and so does Ya-Ya. We read it ALL THE TIME, and even though I thought the movie was way different, I still really loved it too.

Anyway, the holidays, while wonderful, were hectic and everything was going a mile a minute. Then when they were over I spent 3 days taking down all of the decorations, organizing them and sending them up into the attic crawl space via Tim. Then I had to go through all the kids' stuff and get rid of old and broken and grown out of things to make room for all of the new things and I had to organize all of the toys and clothes and such because they are currently sharing a room. The rest was just a matter of cleaning up the aftermath and putting everything back where it belonged. And now that it's all done and put away, we can all finally relax and enjoy our new things and a little bit of quiet time. Whew!